BEIJING—In its latest move to crush porn, China has arrested or detained operators of adult sites that use foreign servers.
According to PC World, this latest crackdown Sunday follows the arrests of mobile porn website owners in China as well as the government's plan—now on hold—to have all machines sold in the country pre-installed with the controversial Green Dam Youth Escort software.
Police claimed two Chinese porn sites, "May Babe" and "May Erotica," ran on U.S. servers and were updated through an encrypted virtual private network (VPN) to avoid detection, according to the state-run Xinhua news service.
Officials said most owners of Chinese porn sites now employ server space abroad to avoid China's web police. It was not stated how the site owners were tracked down.
Police also arrested staff members of a Chinese company that created more than 40 pornographic WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) sites for mobile users, Xinhua said. The company allegedly made over 1 million yuan ($150,000) selling ads.
On Monday, Chinese police warned third-party payment businesses against providing services for those providing pornographic and lewd material online, Xinhua reported.
The ministry statement referred to one case in north China's Hebei Province, in which people were arrested for selling porn site memberships to "Love City" through third-party payments via companies such as AliPay, PayPal and YeePay. Police claim the site has sold more than 8,000 memberships.
Also singled out was Chinese web portal Tencent Inc., accused of "spreading lewd information" and allowing porn on blog spaces.
Additionally, China's Ministry of Health has decreed that only health professionals and researchers will be allowed access to "sexual health web sites" declared legimate by complex government guidlines.
Some suggest this year's ongoing campaign to purge China of porn is aimed toward a porn-free China for the fall, as the People's Republic celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding.
